King Charles’ star-studded trip to New York includes Anna Wintour, Lionel Richie and a Harlem student saying ‘I like your hair’
King Charles III and Queen Camilla visited the site of the Sept. 11 attacks, met with schoolchildren and business titans and socialized with celebrities during a busy swing through New York City on Wednesday — the first visit to the city by a reigning British monarch in 16 years. Charles laid flowers at the National 9/11 Memorial and the royal couple spoke with victims’ relatives, first responders and local dignitaries before traveling to other events midway through a four-day diplomatic trip to the U.S. to mark 250 years of American independence. The royal couple capped their whirlwind day in the city with an appearance at an early evening reception for one of the king’s charities, the King’s Trust, where Charles spoke of the enduring cultural bond between the people of the U.K. and U.S. as one “rooted in shared creativity, enterprise, and values. “Reminding us that we are truly greater together, that’s the point,” he said. The four-day trip is Charles’ first state visit to the U.S. since he became king. His mother, Queen Elizabeth II, made four state visits to the U.S. Her last visit to New York was in 2010. Honoring victims at the 9/11 memorial Charles and Camilla began their public schedule in the city by paying tribute to the nearly 3,000 people killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, including 67 British nationals. They were greeted at the National 9/11 memorial plaza in Lower Manhattan by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, then walked to one of the memorial’s two pools, where parapets bear the names of the victims of the attacks. Charles placed an arrangement of flowers on a parapet before the couple silently bowed their heads in a moment of reflection. The king and queen then shook hands and exchanged pleasantries with a group of attack survivors, first responders and victims’ relatives, some of whom held photos of their lost loved ones. The gathering came ahead of the 25th anniversary of the attacks. The visit to the memorial took plac